The Badge
by oh help
Summary: Seamus tries to get Dean what he thinks he's owed. (Without asking.)


**Ultimate OTP Competition Week 1:** Action: One half of the pairing is voicing doubts about something.

* * *

Professor McGonagall held him back after the last Transfiguration lesson of the first week. "Mr. Thomas," she said as the rest of the class filed out. "I'll admit that I do share some of your...misgivings about Mr. Weasley's appointment, and I'm sure that you would be more than capable, but the decision was Professor Dumbledore's. I'm afraid that there's nothing I can do at this time."

"Professor," he replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"About the new Gryffindor prefect, of course."

"But I don't understand," said Dean. "What's that got to do with me? Did you… Did you want-"

She pursed her lips. "I got the impression from Mr. Finnigan that he believed you a more suitable candidate."

He swore, and she looked to be rethinking anything she'd believed about his capability.

"I'm sorry, Professor." Dean floundered as he tried to explain his innocence. "He didn't say anything to me, I really haven't got a problem..."

McGonagall eyed him and drew in a weary breath. "Then, Mr. Thomas, I suppose you may go."

He was not at all sorry to leave.

Seamus hadn't gotten very far. Apparently torn between waiting for him and running away, he was pacing a stretch of corridor near the staircase. As Dean drew level with him, he stopped and looked up intently, curious.

"I need a word with you," said Dean. At his tone, Seamus faded.

"What?" he asked, with a nervous waver in his voice that made it clear he had a very good idea what.

"What did you say to McGonagall about me?"

"Just—Just that I thought you'd make a good prefect." He dropped his eyes uncomfortably. "I didn't know she'd think you put me up to it, or talk to you even—"

Dean sighed. "Did you bring Ron into it?"

Seamus's voice took on a defensive heat; his shoulders tensed. "Well I couldn't really help it, could I?"

" _Really_ , Seamus?" Dean rolled his head back with a groan. "I can't believe you seriously went to a teacher over this stupid fight you've been having with—"

"It's not about that!"

"What then, you were just so convinced that I ought—"

"He doesn't deserve it!" Seamus snapped.

"Wh—" Dean's mouth hung open in shock. "And I do?"

"You'd do your job," insisted Seamus, throwing out a wild hand. "You wouldn't sit there doing nothing; you've seen him—"

" _Listen_!"

He silenced himself with what looked like great difficulty, his lips twitching as they pressed together.

"I couldn't care less about being a prefect," Dean told him, his voice softer. "And it just goes to whoever Dumbledore thinks is—"

"But that's just it," Seamus burst out. "It's favoritism."

"Don't be an idiot."

"No, you don't pretend you haven't noticed!" he shouted. "It's been happening for years, hasn't it; Dumbledore lets Harry Potter and his friends get away with murder and everyone else just gets the fuckin' shaft!"

Dean ached to retort. The accusation felt unfounded and nasty but he couldn't refute it, not convincingly enough for someone so determined to believe the worst. He breathed in deeply to calm himself and just moaned, "Come on, Seamus."

"I just don't think it's right!"

"I'm getting tired of this," he said. "Ron's your mate. _Harry's_ your mate."

Seamus glowered up at him. "Well, right now I'm not sure who my mates are."

Dean didn't try to reply to that. The corridor echoed with their heavy breaths in the silence.

"Look, I'm sorry I said anything." Seamus's chin was lifted and jaw set, and Dean suspected he was more keen to stop arguing than really sorry. "Now I don't know about you, but I'd like to go to dinner."

"Me too," said Dean. "Just…"

"Just what?" Seamus spat.

"Oh, would you calm down, I'm not going to fight with you, I just—" Dean gave him a searching look. "Why me? Why not you, if you were so bothered?"

Seamus's eyebrows flew up, and he made an incredulous sort of choking noise that might have been a laugh had he not been so focused on being angry. "You're joking. I'd be worse than Ron."

"Do you really think so?"

"Would you put me in charge of anything?"

"Well…" Dean twisted his mouth thoughtfully. "Something you cared about, maybe. I don't know if I'd make you prefect."

Seamus scoffed again, but Dean thought he saw a hint of a smile.

"It sounds miserable, you know." He smiled too, tentatively. "Patrolling and enforcing rules and shite."

"Yeah, well, I figure it's the honor," said Seamus.

Dean held in his question for a few moments, waiting to make sure that Seamus had calmed. "Did you really think I deserved it?"

Seamus turned his head away sheepishly and mumbled, "Out of the five of us, it just seemed like, you know, the obvious choice."

As Seamus fidgeted beside him, tense and pink with embarrassment, Dean was overcome with a surge of affection, a deep gratitude that his friend cared enough to try to get him what he thought he was owed. But there was a feeling below that, something that made his chest flutter uncomfortably. He'd never considered himself the prefect type, no more than any of the others, and the matter-of-factness with which Seamus told him this made him wonder how they saw him. Did he come off more clever, or more leaderly somehow? Was he really?

So often Seamus would sell himself short, and this felt the same. It bothered him. He didn't want a part in any hierarchy of value; he wanted their friendship on equal ground.

"Sorry," said Seamus, when he was silent too long.

"No," said Dean. "Thanks."


End file.
